


Friendship's are Sometimes Lost (Along the Road to Destiny)

by Quoth_the_Raven_Nevermore_Nevermore



Category: Merlin (TV), Merlin - Fandom
Genre: Fever, Scars, gwen angst, sick Merlin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-23 05:08:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/922374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quoth_the_Raven_Nevermore_Nevermore/pseuds/Quoth_the_Raven_Nevermore_Nevermore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was Guinevere Pendragon. Queen of Camelot. But she hadn't always been, once she was just Gwen, the blacksmith's daughter.</p><p>It takes an ill, fevered, and scarred Merlin to make her remember that, and to realize how little she knows of her so called best friend's life anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Friendship's are Sometimes Lost (Along the Road to Destiny)

She was Guinevere Pendragon.

 But she hadn't always been. Once, she was just Gwen, daughter of the blacksmith. That was the girl that befriended another servant who had stood up to a bullying prince and had a smile that was contagious. 

 

She sighed. She'd almost not come. She was disgusted with herself. Gwen would not have entertained the idea of leaving him alone. Gwen would have rushed to his side and sat with her friend for as long as it took. Wouldn't have cared how much trouble she could get in, because friendship was more important than anything.

 

There was a whimper from the cot as the man lying there twisted about, his coal black curls matted to his forehead with sweat. She sighed and removed the cloth that had fallen from his forehead, before soaking it in the rapidly warming water and replacing it.

 

It had taken Gaius practically begging to get Guinevere to come sit with the boy. She'd known he was sick — Arthur had been grumbling about George and his sucking up for at least a week — but she hadn't known that it was so bad that Gaius feared leaving him alone.

 

She'd hadn't known because she hadn't cared to even take the five minutes it would have taken to check in on the servant.

 

Merlin — he was a mess, unable to keep anything down, not even water, and with the highest fever she'd ever see in anyone. Gaius had reassured them It wasn't going to kill him as long as his fever was kept under control. That Merlin was strong, but that he was very sick and needed someone with him at all times, lest his fever spike and no one be there to stop the poor man from being roasted from the inside out.

 

She stroked her hand through his soaked curls. She hadn't realized how much things had changed.

 

Not until Gaius had came to them begging and Arthur — Arthur had said he would sit with the man. Arthur who would never do such a thing unless he was truly worried, and so she'd volunteered to sit by his side instead because if Arthur was worried than there was something to worry about.

 

Merlin whimpered and twisted again, the thin sheet  that had covered his body falling  onto the floor along with the cloth that had sat upon his head. The man cried out again rolling over this time onto his side, wrapping his arms around his stomach, and bringing his legs up to his chin.

 

She sighed and bent to spread the sheet back over him when she froze because of a large scar on the mans back that looked to be a cross between a burn and a puncture wound. It was hideous — but it wasn't only thing that caused her to freeze.

 

Merlin's back was literally covered in scars. Some about he size of her pinky and others perhaps as long as her arm and — where those imprints of chains? He was frighteningly skinny as well, the knobs of his spine clearly visible. 

 

Merlin shivered and rolled over onto his back and she resisted the urge to cry. His chest was scarier sight than his back had been. Every single one of his ribs was visible — and surely this wasn't just from the week he'd been ill — and then — then there were the two largest scars.

 

The first one seemed to be a burn taking up almost the whole of his upper chest. It was defiantly an old wound, perhaps a few years old, the skin pink but healthy. His other wound was smaller but more jagged as if someone had just decided to tear into the man's flesh.

 

It almost looks like a mace — _oh_ , she thinks. _Oh_.

 

She felt shame bubble up like bile in the back of her throat. She'd begged Arthur not to go look for Merlin, had put Arthur's life above Merlin's knowing that Merlin would never put his own first. She'd said she was worried but she'd really only cared for Arthur in that moment, hadn't been thinking of her so called best friend at all.

 

God, when had she become like every royal that she used to detest as a servant? When had she forgot that Merlin was — amazing in the most simple of ways. He was courageous and smart and he was a — a wonderful friend. When had that become so unimportant? When had she stopped being Merlin's friend? 

 

She can't remember.

 

She thinks perhaps it was around the same time that she'd last seen him truly smile, not the hesitant grin he so often sported now but the full on grin that turned his blue eyes into twin crescent moons.

 

She missed that smile, missed their easy friendship. But most of all he missed knowing — anything, because she couldn't recall the last time they'd truly talked or the the last time he'd told her anything but 'yes, my lady', missed when she could confidently call Merlin her best friend. 

 

She let her head hang because, yes. She could see the distance that had grown up between Merlin and herself and between Merlin and the commoner-knights. With Arthur of all people being the only one to have remained close to the man.

 

She loved her husband—she did, but she never thought there would come a day when she would envy him.

 

That day had come.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comment and tell me what you thought please!!


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